Upcoming Jackson Community College events to bring students' creativity to life

JACKSON, MI – Jackson Community College writing instructor Clarinda Flannery feels the best way to get students to push themselves is to have them write for an audience.

A pair of semester-ending events coming up at the Potter Center – “Stage This” and the first Celebration of Student Writing – are designed to do just that.

“They write for a hypothetical audience, which normally they view as their instructor,” Flannery said. “This way, they’re writing for a real audience. They tend to take it a little more seriously in terms of creativity, proofing and editing.

“It gives them a chance to take ownership of their work.”

‘Stage This’

"Stage This" is a series of one-act plays written and performed by members of the Drama Club and students in professor John Yohe’s creative writing classes.

This year’s event will stage at the Ruth Day Theatre on April 12 and 13. It will feature seven works, including “Yield” by Christian Harris; “Stop-N-Go” by Eric Trowbridge; “A Therapy Session” by Ryan Moyer; “…Cinema” by Michael Shoemaker; “We Are Nowhere, And It’s Now” By Taima Bennett; “A Day on the Ward” by Evan Heilborn; and Yohe’s “Ready Or Not: A One-Act Play.”

“I used to try and keep them small, but the storylines have kind of grown over in recent years,” Yohe said. “That allows more people in the Drama Club to get involved.

“We’ve done a lot of different things. A few years ago, we experimented with creating plays based on poems, where the poems were actually used as dialogue.”

“Stage This” is free to attend. However, the material is meant for mature audiences.

Celebration of Student Writing

The initial Celebration of Student Writing project, slated for April 16, is based on a similar project Flannery worked closely with while at Eastern Michigan University. Yohe was a part of the program as a graduate student.

“It’s a mixed-media presentation,” Flannery said. “The students choose to research something they’re interested in, then act as though it’s 10 years from now and they’re writing a book on the subject.”

Part of the project includes designing a book jacket.

“What we tell them is ‘If you were to drop your book jacket and someone picked it up, they wouldn’t even think it wasn’t a real book jacket,’” Flannery said. “It’s high stakes.”

While at Eastern Michigan, Flannery watched the program become intertwined with other colleges and high schools.

“We got to where there would be busloads of kids coming in from the Detroit Public Schools,” she said. “There were relationships formed where a class of students would come in and work with one of our comp classes.

“There is a lot of possibility in terms of community collaboration.”

The upcoming events will mark the final events for Yohe at Jackson Community College. He has been informed his contract will not be renewed, he said.